We only have our winter
by UnknwnParadise
Summary: She loves him. She knows she does. It's always like this when the Widow falls in love with the Fly. The Widow's not even supposed to fall in love. She's a spider. She's a spy. She's an assassin. She's a toy. But he's the same.


_I_

_He's a ghost.  
You'll never catch him._

She lies. That's what she does. She lies to everyone—to Clint, to Steve, to Fury. She lies to herself because it helps, because it lulls the ache in her gut to something bearable, because it makes her able to make the made-up stories believable. She lies so much that not even she can tell the difference between what is real and what is fake any more.

(a ballet rehearsal; a bullet burying itself in a man's chest)

There is an old story about a girl who could not die. And she lived and lived, envying those whose deaths followed them everywhere.  
We all carry our deaths with us, in every breath that fills our lungs with poisonous air, in every cell of our body, in every beat of our heart. It can come to us when we expect it least or, if we are lucky, we can go peacefully, in our sleep. However, there is a story about a girl who could not die.

_Once upon a time, she met a man. _

"They say he's American," Yelena tells her. There is excitement in her voice. They are not supposed to be excited. The only sign that she had heard is the way her hand stills on the barre, her leg extended to the side, her eyes closed. She's not the best in her class. There Alexandra and there's Dora and there's Olga. Madame says they are like feathers in the wind. Natasha still has a long way there. But in four years, she's going to be the best, she's going to—

"They say he's going to break us."

She vaguely knows that by '_they'_ she means their handlers, the same guards which beat her raw that one time when she couldn't shoot properly because her hands were frozen after spending seven hours in the snow, dressed only in the rag one could have called once a dress.

She shows no interest, red hair bouncing as she turns again and again and again, the pirouette perfect and posture tall. In four years, she's going to be better than the others because she **can** be better than the others. Her eyes are closed; she is flying. She doesn't care about the American. She doesn't care if he is going to break her.  
He does, anyway.

They tell her to fight him. A single tap on her shoulder, Ivan Petrovitch giving her a curt nod then one towards the American and they get in the boxing ring in the middle of the room. Yelena squeals. Yelena does not understand—she hasn't seen what the Russian winter can do, hasn't felt its harshness on her skin, in the marrow of her bones.

Two weeks ago, he broke a girl's ankle. A week ago, he fractured another's ribs. Three days ago, he choked someone to death. The girls say he's like a hurricane, quick, harsh, ruthless.

She takes him in. Five feet nine above the ground, two hundred sixty ponds. He looks younger than she had expected him to, but his eyes are blank and it is then she understands why he is one of the best. Only the best manage to snap neck after neck without even blinking.  
The first punch, she dodges. The American seems a little taken aback. Anastasia had launched herself at him before that. No one pulled back, no one slipped away. He tries again and this time, she jumps, using his shoulder (she can feel something hard beneath her fingers, something that is _**not**__ flesh_) as leverage to jump—he catches her leg in his hand and throws her to the floor. His hand is crushing her and she swears she can see something in his eyes, something you would miss if you blinked.

"_This one,_" his voice husky but not breathless. While she's panting, he looks as if he didn't even try. He probably didn't anyway. "This one is the one you're looking for."

_II_

They meet four years later, and he breaks her in another way than he did before. She's a woman now, a stark contrast to the boyish body she had had before, and he looks at her with less of the ice in his gaze that he used to bear. He makes a mistake. He shows her he is human. And gradually, she realizes that she's human, in his presence, as well.

He calls her Natalia. For the first time in her life, she likes the sound of her name. He calls her '_dorogoya'_ and '_zvezda__' _and Russian had never been sweeter. They are in love. It's either heaven or hell, she cannot tell.

"What should I call you? It's not fair only you get to say my name," she says once, when they are draped underneath sheets in a hell-hole of a hotel room. His left arm is glimmering silver in the dim light coming from the full moon outside and she can vaguely see her bra hanging from one of the lamps scattered in the room. Natalia remembers breaking one. His hair is smeared with her blood.

"_James_." He could have given her any name, really. He could have told her to call him Soldier like most of the girls in the programme do, or asset or anything but that. She holds on to that name, though, like it's a secret and perhaps it's the first thing that is only hers in a very, very long while.

"James," she repeats, as if it's something she didn't know she needed until that very moment (and frankly, it is).

James is home and James is happiness. He's the best thing that happened to her since forever. He's a secret and he's truth—perhaps the only real thing in her life, the only thing she can touch without fearing it's an illusion that is going to fade away. They are overwhelming, truly, these sentiments washing over her, how her heart beats faster when he's in the room with her, how she can catch his eyes drifting to her during practice, how his hands linger on her more. They sneak out once and sometimes even twice a week; this is the happy period of her life. The one where she is loved and loves and things are a little more bearable.

_III_

There is an old story about a girl—stories are for children. Happily ever after doesn't exist.

They take him away. She runs and never looks back.

She meets Clint Barton. When she first sees him, she laughs. She's unarmed yes, but she's more lethal with her bare hands than anything and he only has a weapon from the Palaeolithic era. He doesn't kill her. He gives her a home.

She's not Natalia any more. She's Natasha. Natasha Romanoff. Still, she lies. She lies to the Director (she is a little scared; maybe a little human. **he** left her like that) and she lies to the S.H.I.E.L.D therapist. She remembers her first kill. She remembers _all_ of her victims, how they quivered under slim fingertips, that last horrified look which haunts her at night. And she remembers the Winter Soldier. He's worse than all the phantoms of her past.

Things change. She has a choice now. She's not an assassin, she's not an asset any more—she's an agent. Or so she tells herself.

_IIII_

_Natasha sees James again near Odessa._  
(except he's not James, he's only the Soldier now, and by the way  
he's looking at her, he doesn't remember. )

He could have killed her. He shot the scientist she was supposed to protect through her. She has an ugly scar, one that cannot heal as most do, but she's alive. In the mission report, she says nothing of the shadow that had almost killed her, just that he was fast, he was silent and that he had a metal arm. She knows all too well what that arm can do and her body shivers even though it's summer.

Winter is coming.

That night, she cries for the first time in a long time. She doesn't sob, doesn't weep—silent tears descend down her cheeks, hollow from the loss of blood. No one knows, not really. She's feels betrayed and lost for a while. He had been her home and he had been the light to guide out of the darkness. Now, it's been viciously taken away from her and dangled in front of her very eyes mockingly, a sign of telling her, 'you're not really free, Romanova. You're not really out of the game.'

However, after that, she searches for him. He's good but she is as well—learned from the best. Whenever she is close to the root of a thread she's been pulling, he disappears again. So she gives up, after a while.

Strike Team Delta forms. Barton is an idiot, but he is a good distraction.  
(deep down, she admits that he is her friend. she doesn't love him, though.  
love is for children.)

_IV_

James Buchanan Barnes.

James Buchanan Barnes is a hurricane. He is a soldier, he is a grip of iron, he is Captain America's best friend. She lies to Steve even before knowing this. _She doesn't know him_. Doesn't know Bucky. Technically that's not a lie. She had only seen glimpses of Bucky back when he was still _**her**_ James (and oh, how selfish she is in those moments), like the small smirk or the way he was flirting with her when alone. He called her _doll_ once. She liked it more than she wanted to admit it.

James Buchanan Barnes is _winter_. He is fresh and quick and chilly. He shots her again, this time in the shoulder and she knows his weak spots. He doesn't remember her. She's only one of his assignments now. For a moment, she wonders if he even remembers her from Odessa. The thought is quickly dismissed and Fury dies in front of her, yet not really. They're on the run.

She loves him. She knows she does. It's always like this when the Widow falls in love with the Fly. The Widow's not even supposed to fall in love. She's a spider. She's a spy. She's an assassin. She's a toy. But he's the same. They're raised on lies and hatred, children of the Red Room. They're compromised.

Steve says he's going after Bucky. The new kid—Wilson?—is going with him and he asks her if she wants to come. Natasha—Natalia? She doesn't really have a name any more, doesn't really know who she is, just that she needs to find herself in the one long lost and mourned—chuckles. He's not going to find him. He's not going to find him because he doesn't want to be found; Rogers doesn't know his patterns and although she hopes he will catch up some day, she knows he's far behind. James has been trained to avoid being found and Steve doesn't know it yet. He's a soldier. He's not an assassin. He's not built for it, after all.

_V_

Natalia finds the Soldier in Moscow, three months afterwards, in a safe house they shared just before they took him away. His hair is long and greasy, his wounds are healing and he's huddled in the corner of the room, in the dark, like some wild animal that is afraid to be caught. Except he's never afraid. Not really.

She coaxes him out. Speaks to him in Russian is soothing tones, promising only what she knows she can give him. And then she slaps him twice, for each bullet wound and he knocks the air out of her for doing so.

The Soldier tells her he remembers bits and pieces of her. He remembers her smile the best. So she smiles, bottom lip split and curls falling in her eyes. A metal hand raises to tuck them gently behind her ear, and she knows she has him now, he's trapped in her web.

"I'm going to take you home, milli moi. You need a shower."

_epilogue_

Natasha lies. Natalia lies. The Black Widow lies. But she's not lying when she tells him she loves him, weeks later, when they're hidden from everything and everyone in the protective veil of snow of the Alps. The fire is cracking lazily in the fireplace and she can vaguely see her bra hung over the opened door of their bedroom. His arm is painted red in the hue the flames throw over the room and he's marvelling at something, dark eyes locked on her features and his fingers threading through her curls. The smile on her lips when he tells her he loves her too is not a lie, either.

The winter's long and cold, but it passes quicker when there's  
another body to keep you warm.


End file.
